Finding Aid

Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections Department.

Use of Collections: The University of Iowa Libraries supports access to the materials, published and unpublished, in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted by their fragile condition or by contractual agreement with donors, and it may not be possible at all times to provide appropriate machinery for reading, viewing or accessing non-paper-based materials. Please read our Use of Manuscripts Statement.

Acquisition and Processing Information: These materials were transferred to the University Archives from the University of Iowa Music Library in May 1994. Guide created by Denise Anderson, June 2007. Additional oversize box contents notes provided by Amy McBeth, 2010.

This collection contains material relating to the professional career of Professor Philip Greeley Clapp, a composer, conductor of symphony orchestras, accomplished pianist, and music instructor. Some Greeley and Clapp genealogy is included in boxes 1 and 6, as well as some documentation of Mr. Clapp's studies at Harvard in box 12.

Four scrapbooks of carefully dated newspaper articles are housed in box 12. Mr. Clapp and his father, Henry Lincoln Clapp, authored many of the articles, while others announce their accomplishments. Henry Clapp was principal of Putnam Elementary School in Connecticut during the 1800s, and his theories of elementary education were highly-regarded. Articles dated 1879 to 1918 by the senior Clapp on the topic of education, and his hobby of horticulture in the Boston area, are preserved here.

Correspondence in box 6 is primarily with SUI faculty and administrators. Correspondence in box 7 is primarily with administration, yet includes includes more correspondents, who are listed on the folders.

Boxes 15 and 16 hold plaster casts of the faces and hands of adults and a child, yet it is not recorded of whom they were made.

Oversize boxes 1 through 20 contain original scores and drafts of compositions, including annotations. Several audio recordings of Mr. Clapp's performances are included in one oversize box.

Biographical Note

Philip Greeley Clapp was born in Boston on August 4, 1888. His mother, Florence Greeley Clapp, and his aunt, Mary Greeley James, were his first music teachers of piano. At age 11 he began to study composition under the dean of the Boston University Music Department, John P. Marshall. He continued his education at Harvard, earning his B.A. in 1908, and M.A. in 1909, while studying under Dr. Karl Muck, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. During 1909-1911, Clapp studied in Germany under a Harvard fellowship, and took his Ph.D. in 1911. Dr. Clapp taught at Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and other colleges for the next seven years, before joining the faculty at the University of Iowa.

At Iowa, he continued as a composer, and conducted the University Symphony Orchestra, among others. He was hired to organize an official music department, because such instruction had been private since 1906. Associated with the University of Iowa as a professor and department head since September 1919, Dr. Clapp became director of the School of Music in 1932, a position he held until his retirement on July 1, 1953. Philip Greeley Clapp died of a heart attack on April 9, 1954. During his 35 years of guidance, the University of Iowa School of Music gained a reputation that attracted students from across the nation, largely for the varied experience, and due to the opportunity of graduate study, which was developed by Dr. Clapp. The University of Iowa Clapp Recital Hall was named in his honor in 1971.

Calmer, Charles Edward. "Philip Greeley Clapp: The Early Years (1888-1909)." M.A. thesis, University of Iowa, 1981.

Calmer, Charles Edward. "Philip Greeley Clapp: The Later Years (1909-54)." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1992.

White, Dorrance Stinchfield. “A Biography of Dr. Philip Greeley Clapp, Director of Music at the State University of Iowa, 1919 -- 1954,” in University of Iowa Historical Papers collection (RG 01.01.03)

"The Use and Development of the Orchestral Woodwind," by P.G. Clapp, 133 handwritten pages, n.d.

The Lion and the Clown, vocal score

Box 2

The Flaming Brand, text and music score, by P.G. Clapp

Box 3

The Flaming Brand, text and music score, by P.G. Clapp

Box 4

The Flaming Brand, text and music score, by P.G. Clapp

Box 5

The Flaming Brand, text and music score, by P.G. Clapp

Box 6

Greeley genealogy

The Clapp memorial. Record of the Clapp Family in America, Containing Sketches of the Original Six Emigrants, and a Genealogy of Their Descendants Bearing the Name. With a Supplement, and the Proceedings at Two Family Meetings. Ebenezer Clapp, Compiler. 1876

Fifty Ancestors of Henry Lincoln Clapp, Who Came to New England from 1620 to 1650, part 1. 1902

P.G. Clapp's early sketch books

Diary of Florence Greeley, 1888-1895

An Account of School Garden and Herbarium Work Done During Fourteen Years, 1890-1904, in the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, by Henry Lincoln Clapp

Correspondence from Alice I. Whitehall, University of Iowa music student, 1938-1944

Phi Beta Kappa, positions held by Clapp

Correspondence of Clapp to his wife, Gladys, 1925

Correspondence of Clapp held at the Library of Congress, and clippings, 1908-1918

Mss 74-76. “Masque” In Memory of the Soldiers Killed in the War. Includes typed letter to Clapp from? (illegible) with return address of 8 Kraft Avenue, Bronxville, New York, September 17, 1919. Performance suggestions.

Handwritten postscript. Text and stage direction to “A Memorial Masque for the Soldiers Killed in the War,” with ms insert of special musical (Burgundian folk song). Full score and partial piano reduction.

Ms 78. “The pageant For the 50th Anniversary of the Massachusetts Agricultural College.” Typed text explaining leitmotivs of music and stage direction. Typed letter from William Chauncy Langdon, American Telephone and Telegraph Company, NY, June 29, 1926. (Pageants to take place at various locations.) Mention of pageant committee in Michigan and possible engagement of Detroit Symphony for performance. Instrumentation list for Cape Cod, Austion, Indiana University performances. Sheet music by W. C. Langdon. Sketches for pageant score. Piano score to “Music for the Pageant of the Massachusetts Agricultural College,” full score.